Raging Rondo and Blazing Trails

A quick word about Rajon Rondo and Dwight Howard first, but the lion's share of today's post is about my other team, the Portland Trail Blazers.  Dwight Howard is out for game six against Philadelphia for elbowing Sam Dalembert during the first quarter of last night's game, and rightfully so.  Rajon Rondo has not been suspended for hitting Brad Miller in the face during the closing seconds of their game last night, and there has been much more debate about this (non)call.  

My take on the whole thing is that Rondo should have been assessed a flagrant foul for hitting Brad Miller in the head, the rules of the NBA are clear on that, but not suspended for the next game of the series.  Unfortunately, the NBA's officiating is notoriously horrible, and it seems to me that they were prejudiced against Miller because of the huge difference in size between him and Rondo.  If the roles were reversed, Miller would have been ejected, fined, suspended and shanked by KG on his way off of the floor, but alas Brad Miller is seven feet tall and Rondo is only a hair over six feet and wire thin to boot, so whistles were swallowed and the outcome of the game was potentially altered.  

Except it wasn't.  First of all, the Bulls broke down many times down the stretch, including not doubling Paul Pierce in the closing seconds of overtime.  Ray Allen was not on the floor, at that point the Bulls HAVE to make somebody other than Pierce beat them.  They didn't, and Pierce made them pay.  And even if they had called a flagrant (which would have meant free-throws AND the ball back), there's no guarantee that the Bulls would have a) converted the attempts or b) made the final shot once they had the ball again.  The Rondo foul and the way it was handled impacted the game to be sure, but not forcing the ball away from Pierce is inexcusable.  

As for the question of a suspension, I don't think it is merited in Rondo's case.  Although he hit Miller in the head, he was attempting to make some kind of play on the ball in a game deciding moment, so I don't see this play as the same as Howard's elbow or Trevor Ariza's flagrant on Rudy Fernandez earlier this year.  Howard hit Dalembert after the play in what was clearly frustration and retaliation and Ariza's play came during a blowout loss at Portland when the game had already been decided.  He also hit a player who was farther off the ground and moving much faster than Miller was, and again there's that whole size bias.  The whole thing stinks, and I won't be surprised when Miller decks Rondo on Thursday, but I just didn't see the play as suspension-worthy.

All right, enough about fouling, let's talk Blazers for a little bit.  Earlier today, Henry Abbott wrote that any self-respecting blogger should be talking about the Blazers, and I am inclined to agree.  I was at the game last night (thanks to some tickets scored by the greatest girlfriend ever) and I can tell you that I've never been at a sporting event that comes anywhere close to that.  The level of excitement, anticipation, energy and noise were out of control, and the Blazers did an admirable job of fighting off a veteran team with a chance to close out the series early.  The loudest cheer from the crowd came when Yao Ming was actually whistled for a foul, and from start to finish the crowd was into it and trying to affect every single play.  

As I predicted prior to tip-off, LaMarcus Aldridge had a killer game and couldn't be contained by anyone on Houston's roster.  He was posting up, stepping back and taking it to the hole aggressively against a physical Rocket defense with a kind of aggression that I've yet to see from him.  For me it was a realization of his gifts married to the desire and drive to carry his team to victory.  Aldridge has a huge physical advantage over every one of Houston's players (he's too tall for the likes of Scola, Hayes or Landry, and too quick for Yao) and he finally exerted it, posting up the smaller forwards and getting close to the basket and using his quickness to punish Yao (there was one sequence where he isolated on Yao, crossed over a few times to unsettle the defender and then rose up and splashed the jumper right in his face).  And more than simply hitting his jumpers, Aldridge was aggressive going to the basket and forcing the issue against the Rockets.  If only he could do this more often, or on the road, or for two games in a row, but for a game, Aldridge carried the Blazers when he absolutely had to.  

Complimenting Aldridge's stellar performance (he finished tied with Brandon Roy for the game's high scoring mark at 25) was Portland's MVP, Brandon Roy.  Though he didn't play out of his mind, Brandon hit big baskets when his team needed them and always seemed to come in and stem the tide whenever Houston was poised to make a run and put the game away.  If he isn't already considered to be there, Brandon Roy will be a top ten player one day.  This kid is Paul Pierce with a better left hand and more quickness and the same amount of killer instinct and competitive fire.  Once his supporting cast matures and they learn to play a bit more defense, he will be an unstoppable force and a champion, mark my words.

Speaking of defense, I was appalled at the Blazers' spotty defensive effort last night.  I know it's impossible to keep Aaron Brooks out of the lane with the hand-checking rules the way they are, but still, the Blazers were victim to dribble penetration all night long and gave up a ton of easy shots to Houston (many were wide open looks for Luis Scola, which he hit with ruthless efficiency, finishing 10-13 from the floor).  If Portland is to have any chance at winning game six in Houston, they need to tighten up their defense and really clamp down on Houston.

Speaking of winning game six, at this point I say Portland's chances are slim but not out of reach, which is more credit than I would have given them before last night's game.  It occurs to me that Portland isn't a great road team and that the Rockets are experienced and will come out fired up for game six and that my judgement is probably colored from being at the game last night, but my thinking about this series has changed since yesterday.  

Portland has gotten better with each game in this series, and this young team is learning how to play playoff basketball every minute that they're on the floor.  Knowing that and seeing their progression, I am now thinking that the Blazers have a great chance to shock Houston and the NBA by winning game six tomorrow night.  Portland hasn't been blown out on the road yet, and each road game is hard fought and competitive, a good sign for Blazer fans everywhere.  The Blazers have taken Houston's best punches and hung tough throughout, and I feel like they are poised to topple the Rockets and steal this series back from them.  Before this series started, I would have never given Portland a chance to win a game six on the road, but now I think this is their best chance to win on the road.  As this young team learns, they get exponentially more dangerous.  If you aren't watching game six on Thursday, you're cheating yourself, end of story.  

Taking on Water

Despite the sunny weather in Portland (no, you didn't misread that), the Sea of Green is darker and more tumultuous than ever.  News broke today that Leon Powe will miss the rest of this year's postseason with a torn ACL.  The formerly razor thin Celtics' front line is now approaching Kate Moss territory, which is quite ironic when you remember that Glen "the Ticket Stub" Davis has been starting in place of Kevin Garnett and now represents half of the Celtics' healthy power forwards (considering the other power forward is Mikki Moore, I'd say Davis is closer to 2/3).  In spite of some inspired play from Davis, it seems that what little was left of the Celtics' playoff chances have evaporated into thin air.  

At this point, beating Chicago would be an accomplishment for a team this thin.  At this point Boston is effectively down to eight rotation players (though we will probably see Bill Walker for the remainder of the playoffs) and Paul Pierce is now legitimately the third tallest healthy body on the Celtics roster.  Short of undergoing a transformation into the 2005 Phoenix Suns and playing microscopically small ball, I don't see how the Celtics can contend with this roster.

Low post scoring will be almost nonexistent without Powe, as both Davis and Moore are mid-range shooters and Perkins' post game, underrated as it is, won't carry a top quality team.  Powe's energetic low-post game yielded high percentage shots and often times created foul trouble for opposing defenses.  Add to that his effective defense, particularly his knack for drawing charges and I have a hard time seeing Boston beating Orlando, with a series against Cleveland looking like it could end in five or even four games.  Losing to the Bulls is now a distinct possibility...

...

Sorry, as I'm writing this Brandon Roy is going one on eight (I'm counting Joey Crawford's officiating crew members as Houston Rockets based on the way they've called the game) and schooling Houston.  The game is very tight, and you can see the Blazers are still learning and adjusting to this level of play.  Aldridge has 26 and 11 and Roy has 39 with twenty seconds left to go.  Brandon looks like a young Paul Pierce tonight, hitting impossible shots time and again and makes it look easy in spite of a TON of contact from the Houston defense.  The game just went final and Roy finished with 42 points on an efficient 15-27 shooting and seven rebounds to boot.  Fear the Blazers if they can fully adjust to this level of play.  

I could go on all day about Brandon Roy or how done the Celtics are, but I think I'll wait until Thursday to do.  Once I've had a chance to fully appraise what's left of the Celtics, I'll either finish laying them to rest or devise some unholy scheme to steal the championship from LeBron.  

So It Goes

For those of you who don't already know, it appears as if Kevin Garnett will be out for the entire postseason.  I think I speak for everyone in Celtic land when I say "SHIT!"  Let me preface what I'm about to say by telling you that I am in no way abandoning these Celtics or giving up on their hopes to have success in the postseason, but I cannot in good conscience make the argument that everything will be all right for Boston this spring.  I would be a delusional liar if I believed that, and I've watched far too many Celtic games that haven't had Garnett in them to believe that this team can still win a playoff series on the road against Cleveland (not to mention LA).  Sorry if I'm bursting any bubbles out there, but you had to hear it sometime and in the end it will teach you a lesson about life.

Was that a lesson about life being unfair?  Or about triumphing over adversity?  Or about managing a superstar's minutes early in their career so injuries like this don't happen down the road?  No, the lesson is that all professional sports (and some of the college ones), not just the WWE and the NFL, are scripted.  Take a second to figure out where that truth blind sided you from (left field) and then think about it for a second.  I can go as far back as you like, but let's start in the offseason of 2007 to see this plot line fully develop...

After the end of the 2007 NBA Finals (where the Spurs dismantled LeBron James and the Cavs without even breaking a sweat), the NBA was in a panic about how to make their product relevant, compelling and interesting to the general public.  Stories about San Antonio and their machine like execution of an ingenious coaching system (post, slash, kick, hit the open shot and defend, how novel!) as well as the completely dull greatness of Tim Duncan were getting quite stale and it seemed as though nobody was anywhere close to challenging the Spurs for supremacy in the NBA.  The Spurs were so good, in fact, that they made the regular season into their preseason, and the playoffs into a formality.  Their methodical excellence and precision sucked all of the uncertainty and excitement out of basketball, which for everyone outside of San Antonio made basketball almost unwatchable.  

Counterbalancing the rise of San Antonio to new heights of dominance in 2007 were the Boston Celtics, who lost nineteen freaking games in a row in 2007 and were the league's worst team that year.  The Association's most storied and winningest franchise was on display with their pants around their ankles, making it hard to believe that the likes of Cousy, Russell, BIrd and Hondo ever donned the green and white.  Though they were well stocked with some tantalizing young talent, the Celtics were more than twenty years removed from their last title and still seemed to be years away from raising banner number seventeen to the rafters, despite the best shot at a top pick in an especially loaded draft class.  To make a long story slightly less long, the ping pong balls bounced with a sense of cruelty normally reserved for detainees in Eastern European prisons and Boston ended up with the fifth pick (the worst possible outcome for them) and we as Bostonians seemed to be doomed to only celebrate the three Superbowls and two World Series recently won by the Patriots and Red Sox forever.  Little did we know that David Stern had big plans for the Celtics during the coming summer.

Up until now, everything that I've described could have easily been coincidence and as unscripted as your average episode of "Reno 911."  What happened to the Celtics next makes it clear that the NBA is, in fact, as scripted as your average episode of "Survivor" or "the Hills."  Magically, Ray Allen fell out of the sky and into Danny Ainge's lap on draft night, costing the Celtics only Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak's reanimated corpse and the number five draft pick (which turned into Jeff Green).  That was a lopsided deal to be sure, but there were questions about Allen's health and Seattle was currently acting out the movie "Major League" in real life, only without the Hollywood ending, so I wasn't that surprised by the deal.  Still, the Celtics weren't an over-the-top team with the tandem of Allen and Pierce together.  

And then, as Lloyd Bridges would say, it happened.  In the summer of 2007, a perfect storm appeared from a confluence of separate plot lines that fit together perfectly and created the ideal climate for the NBA's return to glory.  Kevin Garnett finally wanted out of Minnesota and had the nerve to say so.  David Stern needed some way to reconnect the current manifestation of the Association with its golden age.  Boston is a significantly larger media market than St. Paul and Minneapolis.  Minnesota's GM Kevin McHale and Celtics GM Danny Ainge were old friends from that era.  Boston had one legitimate young star left to trade (Al Jefferson), and the right combination of supporting pieces and expiring contracts to make the deal work.  And finally, with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce on board, the Celtics were talented and experienced enough to be a good fit for the Big Ticket.  Eureka!  

This is where, I believe, Stern at least coaxed both teams in the right direction and started scripting the Celtics' return to glory.  Using his influence, Stern pushed McHale to make the trade, lopsided as it was (how Ainge managed to hang on to Rondo in that deal I will never know).  Suddenly, the Celtics had a championship quality core in the weakest division in all of professional basketball and a legit shot to burn a swath through the 2007-08 NBA season.  Seeing the opportunity at their doorstep and with some coaxing from Commissioner Stern, no doubt, the Celtics went over the luxury tax and brought the final two pieces of the puzzle together in Eddie House and James Posey, and the Celtics were poised for an epic return to greatness.

Stern had laid the groundwork for the NBA's return to glory, but still, there was that pesky problem of San Antonio's stranglehold on the Western Conference.  Though it was true at this point that the Celtics would compete with the Spurs in the Finals and thus improve the quality of the postseason play overall, Stern was dreading another rehashing of the 2005 Finals where Detroit and San Antonio slugged it out in a brutally defensive series, that despite being close close throughout was largely unwatchable for most casual basketball fans.  Clearly, the Commissioner would have to take more drastic steps if he was to save his league from itself.  

Enter Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.  Here's where the coincidences go from being plausible to outright ridiculous.  Why?  Because during that offseason, Kobe Bryant was doing everything he possibly could to get out of Los Angeles.  Unsatisfied with the quality of teammates around him and too impatient to wait several years for their young talent to develop further, Bryant made several trade demands in between publicly demeaning his teammates and sulking throughout the course of the summer.  Rumors swirled, but the Lakers stood fast and resisted trading the league's best player for cents on the dollar in spite of threats of a holdout from their star player.  

The rift between Kobe and the Lakers seemed wider than Eddy Curry's fat ass, yet somehow Bryant came into training camp happy and dedicated to sharing the basketball and making the teammates he had around him better, even if it meant sacrificing some of his own personal glory.  How could this have happened?  My theory is that David Stern came to Kobe with his preliminary idea for the upcoming season, which included his Lakers toppling the Spurs and heading to the Finals to face off with the new "Big 3" of the Boston Celtics.  Having already engineered Derek Fisher's release from the Utah Jazz and reunion with the Lakers, Stern assured Kobe that his days of playing with Smush Parker and losing to the Suns in the first round of the playoffs were over.  Stern guaranteed him an easy path there and an even shot at claiming his first title as the center of his team, an offer too rich and tantalizing for Kobe to pass up.  At this point Stern also revealed to Kobe that he'd gone back in time and stolen Kareem's mojo Austin Powers style and injected it directly into Andrew Bynum, transforming the thus far unproven youngster into a beast of a center capable of going toe to toe with the best big men in the Association.

There was just one problem with all of this: the Celtics were too good.  Like way too good.  Playing perhaps the best defense the NBA has ever seen, the Celtics burned a swath through the regular season General Sherman style (yes, a civil war reference.  Finally, my history degree is paying off!) and transformed into an unstoppable force that was poised to make the Finals as boring as they were with the Spurs dominating, only this team was backed by a horde of insufferable Bostonians instead of rowdy Texans (not sure which is worse, and I'm one of the insufferable Bostonians, what does that say?).  The Celtics easily handled the Lakers twice during the regular season, in addition to becoming the first team in a while to sweep the dreaded Texas Triangle of Dallas, Houston (ending their 22 game winning streak in the process) and San Antonio on the road.  In order to make the postseason more than a formality, the Lakers had to get better in a hurry.

Enter Pau Gasol.  After losing Andrew Bynum for the year with an unfortunate knee injury (the jury's still out on whether or not this was scripted or just an unfortunate occurrence), the Lakers pulled off perhaps the most lopsided trade since acquiring Wilt the stilt from Philadelphia back in the 1960s.  I know that the Grizzlies are a cost-conscious team and famously inept, but even so, there is no way that they would have traded their best player to the Lakers for nothing (Kwame Brown????????) unless David Stern somehow had a hand in the deal.  

It's not very subtle, I know, but then again, subtlety has never been Stern's strong suit.  Seeing the giant, gaping hole in the middle of the rotation, Stern had one of those moments where he said to himself, "my god, I'm going to have to go so far beyond the shenanigans 2002 Western Conference Finals or the 2006 Finals to get the match-up I want unless I can fix the Lakers.  I know, give them Gasol!"  And so it was that Pau Gasol came to Los Angeles and the Lakers were back on track to meet the Celtics in the Finals in what would no-doubt make for great television.  This plan worked so well, in fact, that Stern only had to fix one game against San Antonio (no call on Derek Fisher's foul of Brent Barry, horrendously crappy officiating or conspiracy?  You decide) for the Lakers to claim the Western Conference crown.

After months and months of meticulous planning and manipulation, Stern and the NBA had achieved their goal, a reprisal of the league's greatest rivalry, Celtics v. Lakers.  Only Boston was way too good for the Lakers and proved it in the world's first six game sweep.  Despite the predictions to the contrary from nearly everyone with a soapbox to stand on (Timmy Legs and Simmons, my hat's off to you for seeing the light), the Celtics dominated LA, burying them in game six with a barrage of relentless defense and three-pointers.  If these Celtics had so thoroughly exposed Kobe as a flawed player and beaten LA so resoundingly without any experience playing together, the prospects of having a competitive NBA for the next three years were grim.  

On the surface, the Lakers seemed to make a series of it, and the television was outstanding to be sure, however the 39 point loss in the clincher and the 20 point fourth quarter choke by LA were strong warnings to Commissioner Stern that something had to change.  The Celtics were far too good to lose to this Laker squad, and to make matters worse, their fans got even more obnoxious and full of themselves, leaving David Stern scrambling for a solution.  Using all of his cunning, Stern came up with yet another ingenious plan to take his suddenly revitalized league to the next level: let's have our two best players play each other the title! (like I said, subtlety isn't his strongest suit).  And thus, the chain of events that culminated in KG's lingering injury were set in motion to secure a Cavs/Lakers Finals.

Cleveland's acquisition of Mo Williams along with Andrew Bynum's recovery and the Celtics' loss of James Posey (Stern engineered this one too, he made Ainge put the checkbook away) set the stage, but unfortunately it seemed as though the Celtics were determined to play even better than last year despite the improvements made by the rest of the elite teams in the Association.  One mysterious knee injury later, the Celtics are now officially underdogs heading into this year's postseason.  Despite getting the best basketball from Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and everyone else on the Celtics, the Celtics don't appear to have enough to beat the Cavs a seven game series that features four games in Cleveland.  

For now, it appears as though Stern will get his wet-dream of a Finals, Kobe vs. LeBron.  They've been at the center of the MVP debate this year (rightfully so) and it seems like a force stronger than fate is pushing them closer to a match-up in June.  Boston will still compete valiantly and be spared a humiliating defeat in the Conference Finals at the hands of NBA officials, losing instead to a team that is legitimately better than the Celtics are.  The deck has already been stacked, there will be no miracle ace on the river to save Boston's hopes of repeating as champions.  I was skeptical all year long based on the quality of the opposition, but now it seems that I have almost no hope at all.

Am I angry at David Stern for writing us out of the drama so early?  A little, but I understand that we had our shot last year and benefitted greatly from it.  Now it's time for us as Celtic fans to root hard for our team and accept the inevitable defeat with grace and dignity (look those words up sometime before the Conference Finals).  We're playing with house money at this point, expectations for success couldn't be lower.  It's time to make the most of it, and for the Celtics prove that ubuntu is more than a word.  This team has thrived on adversity and the past, and I expect nothing but their best effort for as long as they're in the playoffs.  But it is already written that we are not to taste sweet victory again this June.  So it goes.  

Hexed

These are the days where I hate being out of market for the Celtics.  Curse my West Coast lifestyle!  I don't know if I can provide much on a game I didn't see or recreate the excitement or enthusiasm of the contest (Ronald Reagan I am not), I just don't want you to think that I'm not paying attention.  

As we gear up for the playoffs and match-ups become clearer, I'll be ramping up my coverage and analysis of the Celtics and their quest to repeat as NBA champions.  The road to another title will be much harder than it was last spring, as the Celtics will have to best a superior field with a potentially depleted squad.  Last year's championship Celtics team was miles ahead of everyone else, even if 9 of 10 talking heads with opinions on ESPN picked the Lakers to win the Finals (props to Tim Legler for choosing wisely), however this year's team has fallen back into the pack and is currently drafting behind several other very talented squads.  What the hell happened?  

Sixty three percent of participants in a survey I made up for this column chose "lack of Posey" as the answer to that last question, and frankly I can't say I blame them for saying so.  It's no secret that the Celtics miss Posey's versatility, length, toughness, shooting and so on, but I think the improvement of the Lakers, Magic, and Cavaliers has more to do with Boston's struggles to stay ahead of the pack than any holes in their own roster.  With the exception of Detroit, every other elite NBA team got better after the 2008 Finals.  Houston got Artest, San Antonio got Roger Mason, Dwyane Wade returned, Denver added Billups, Portland added Oden, Orlando added Pietrus, the Hornets added Posey, Los Angeles got Andrew Bynum and Trevor Ariza back, and pesky Cleveland got Mo Freaking Williams.  Though not all of the names on this list are stars (though some are), every guy I just mentioned fills a key hole and has improved his team from the previous year.  The Celtics added nobody during the offseason, choosing instead to feast off of some table scraps in late February to help them try and get over the hump this June.

The crazy part in all of this is that the Celtics were still (until fairly recently) the top team in the Association for a while.  They're playing better offense this year while still bringing the characteristic (albeit sometimes unsettlingly spotty) defensive intensity and are still right there with everyone else as the regular season goes into its final weeks.  Leon Powe, Glen Davis, Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins have all gotten better since last year, and with a significantly healthier Ray Allen on board Boston has managed to fill the void left by Posey.  The problem is simply that everyone else has caught up.

This year's championship run will be a different kind of challenge for the Celtics.  As I mentioned before, last year's team was miles ahead of the competition which worked out just fine for their title run.  If I had things my way, they'd be in the same boat again this year.  Unfortunately that isn't the case, but that doesn't mean that the Celtics can't win.  If the Celtics can conserve some energy by letting another team take the lead (in this case Cleveland) and get healthy in time for the grueling home stretch, I like their chances just as much as anyone else's.  I promise that there will be more to come soon, but for now I am tired and need to put some energy into my gig that actually pays the bills...